A little over an hour ago, I tried to catch the next train home. The train had come in when I had arrived; a throng of people were slowly flooding in. “Please move in!” a station employee called out, guiding them with his hands. When the mass of people finally moved in, I tried to board the train. But the front entrance was plugged up with people. The rear entrance was similarly sealed off. When I peered into the windows, I saw a most astonishing sight.
The centre of the car was completely empty.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Yet osmosis has clearly failed here. The employee waved his hands, exhorting the people to move in. Pleading, almost. Other commuters stopped outside the car, waiting for a chance to board. Inside, I saw faces turning away, eyes going blank, mouths closing shut. Others had more subtle expressions, their gazes narrowing to filter out an ever-increasing number of people from their field of view, and therefore field of thought. The press of passengers remained still.
Neurons fired, words formed, and my lips began to open. Then the doors closed, and the train moved off. As it passed me by, I saw just two people standing in the middle of the train, staring out at the platform, their gazes washing out the other would-be commuters.
No, I’m not angry. Or disappointed. Or disgusted. Or wrathful. Just curious. Why did the passengers not move towards the centre of the car, allowing more people to board the train?
So, now, I shall attempt to work it all out.
Let’s look at the employee. He had all the hallmarks of an authority figure. He was wearing a distinct uniform and carrying a handheld radio. These are symbols of power. His uniform and role may not be as recognized as that of a soldier or a police officer’s, but the symbols he wielded should be sufficient to show to the average person that he is in a position of authority to accomplish a task, and thus induce obedience. In fact, if you give a man a lab coat and a clipboard and tell everybody around him that he’s a scientist in charge of an experiment, everybody will treat him as such. The Milgram experiment proved this conclusively.
But counting against the employee, I think, was his manner of speech. He was facing the front rank of passengers, who were just about squashed into the train, and did not gesture at anybody. The human brain can seek to interpret the employee’s words as directed towards the passengers near the mouth of the car, not the ones at the rear. So, the people at the rear can feel that they are not being asked to move, and so feel no pressure to move -- even though they are the only ones with the space to move, and are the cause of the situation.
Furthermore, the employee used a gentle, polite tone of voice. Such a strategy tends to work in a one-on-one basis, when the other party has shown an inclination to listen, and when you want to interact with that person. But, in this case, you aren’t seeking an interaction. You’re seeking compliance.
Police officers are trained to order suspects to surrender through shouts, simply-worded orders, closing in on all sides, and visual and auditory distractions. This much sensory input overloads the brain, closing off its ability to think, and pushing the suspect into choosing the choice that is repeatedly being presented to him: surrender.
Policemen don’t say ‘Please put the weapon down’. Not unless they are dealing with the mentally unstable and believe that doing so could convince the subject to do so. They say ‘Put your weapon down’. They may tag on a ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’, but the tone and the underlying message is the same: Do as I say. The word ‘please’ tends to detract from this effect and mitigate this message, which is why one uses it out of respect for one’s superiors.
But in this situation, the word ‘please’ softens the message to the point where the intended audience, already buffered through what are essentially human shields, can again choose to ignore the message. End result: some people get left behind on the platform.
The employee should have gestured at the people at the rear, or otherwise indicate that he was addressing them. Doing so strips away the illusionary distance between the audience and the speaker, making it more and more difficult to ignore the message. He should also have used firmer, blunter, and more direct speech, to further impress his will upon the intended audience.
Now, let’s consider the people in the train. In particular, the people at the outer fringes of the plugs of people, the ones who could have simply moved in. Is there a cost in moving? No. The energy expenditure of taking a few steps is negligible for the average healthy human being, and the people in question were healthy human beings -- at least healthy enough to walk. Is there a benefit in staying? No. One spot in a train is as good as another.
Can we chalk this up to the inertia of stillness? With no real costs pushing a person into moving, nor any benefits to pull his feet into motion, it’s simply easier to stay still. Up to a point, yes. But let’s go deeper and talk about where this inertia came from.
There is a specific neuron in the brain known as a ‘mirror neuron’. This neuron fires when an animal does something, and observes the same action performed by another. This is generally useful: it forms the foundation of empathy, and is a survival trait. When you see someone smile genuinely, your mirror neurons fire, and you tend to break into a smile too. This generates rapport between the both of you, bringing you that much closer. Likewise, when you see a group of people flee, your neurons fire, and you tend to run with them too -- better to be wrong than to find out at first hand just how sharp a tiger’s claws can be.
So, say you are standing in a train car. Around you, people are standing around, not moving. Your mirror neurons tell you that there’s no need to move, and that it’s best to stay still. That’s what everybody else is doing, after all.
Those same neurons, however, don’t tell you that the people can’t move because you are blocking the way. Another part of the brain is responsible for that. So far, it seems, the collective voice of the mirror neurons seems capable of drowning out that of the part of the brain that tells you that maybe something is wrong with this picture. That’s if the latter is actually activated in the first place. It’s so easy to filter out that dissenting part of the brain when the mirror neurons are loud and clear, and when that man in the green shirt on the platform isn’t really talking to you.
That being said, I don’t think the explanation can stop here.
Everywhere else I have been and have seen or read of, the public transportation system doesn’t suffer from this loophole in this law of nature. People tend to move towards the centre of the car, bus, whatever they are riding on. So far, only Singapore seems to suffer from this problem.
Why?
Let’s think about motive. Why would a person want to stay near the entrance of a train car or bus? I would imagine that doing so would facilitate one’s exit from the vehicle when one arrives at one’s destination. While doing so inconveniences other people from boarding, there remains a significant number of people who are not inconvenienced by that notion.
Why?
I don’t know. I actually don’t know. I would think that some of the people who choose to do this tend to be more self-centred than average, placing their personal needs and wants above those of others. I would also think that the rest are just plain ignorant of their actions, and/or choose to deny the consequences of not moving in -- after all, it doesn’t affect them personally, and people are moved into action by what affects them personally.
Why?
If this were part of human nature, then we would have seen this overseas. But I have not, and neither have my contacts and research material. So all this must be part of something inherent in Singapore. The only explanation I can think of lies in the culture that is ingrained in us -- the mindset that we are encouraged to adopt by the people around us.
Every Singaporean knows of
kiasi and
kiasu, the twin pillars of Singapore culture and behaviour. The former is being afraid of death, though it tends to mean being afraid to take risks, such as writing an essay that may lead to a few quiet people knocking on your door at midnight. The latter, literally translated as ‘fear of losing’, is to be afraid to miss a future perceived gain, be it the most delicious food at a buffet or a seat in a foreign university. I use ‘perceived’, because the person perceives that the object of desire is seen as good -- but it may not be.
What this suggests is that we live in a culture that aims to defend and inflate the ego. By refusing to take risks, one’s ego need not experience failure. By seizing at everything that comes one’s way, one’s ego need not worry about regret. Mirroring encourages this behaviour, as everybody imitates everybody else in a strange kind of empathy, building upon and reinforcing this culture.
And by being so wrapped up in defending the individual ego, one can ignore the humanity of others.
By refusing to take risks, one refuses to push one’s limit and grow as a person, or achieve one’s goals, or make progress. Everybody said that Singapore would not survive as an independent nation until the government took a risk on Albert Winsemius’ economic strategy post-independence. By refusing to pass on a future perceived gain, one distorts one’s view of the world, and potentially harms oneself and others. After the First World War, the French sought revenge upon the Germans through the Treaty of Versailles, thoroughly wrecking the German economy, decimating the military, reducing German territory -- and inflaming German anger, which Adolf Hitler used as a base to gain power and support.
Over-emphasising the ego leads to ignoring other people’s needs and wants -- and one does so at one’s peril. In the case of France, when the cries for revenge were finally silenced, that was because many voices had gone still. By blocking entrance into the train now by just standing around, one encourages others to do the same -- and you might just get caught in a similar situation.
Let’s go back to the train. Why do people stay as close to the exit as possible? To minimise the time spent leaving the train -- which suggests that there is a cost involved in not leaving the train on time, and a benefit in leaving quickly. Here is
kiasi and
kiasu for you: people don’t want to risk missing their stop, and want more time to do whatever they want to do, so they stay as close to the exit as possible. Never mind that a few extra seconds moving from the centre of the train to the exit is insignificant, and that letting people board the train would allow them to continue their journeys smoothly (and avoid blog posts like this one).
Overly cynical view of the world? Maybe. But, unless proven otherwise, and until a sociologist finally investigates this phenomenon, this seems to be the most reasonable explanation for the train passengers’ behaviour.
So what can be done about this? This situation involves elements that are both external and internal. The external elements are supplied by figures of authority (and, to a lesser extent, posters and announcements). The internal aspects are the motivations and mindsets of passengers.
The external aspects are easy to change. Staff should be trained to communicate clearly, especially when addressing crowds like this. Posters and announcements should be re-crafted, such that their message sticks. How the latter could be done is best left to experts who dare to take on the challenge of communicating in a space where information is routinely filtered out.
The internal element, however, is more difficult. It revolves around our culture. People living in Singapore are encultured to a greater or lesser degree in the philosophies of kia. The academic system encourages competition between individuals through the perceived differentiation of elite, mundane, and bad schools, perceived differences in prestige among different higher education choices, and sharply limited places in local universities (especially for Arts students). The workplace tends to be competitive, with a glut of highly-qualified job-seekers on the market. The people around us, further, reinforce the kia ideology every time they talk about it, or engage in activities that are based on it, and seem to succeed. And mirror neurons entrench herd behaviour. The odds are against change.
The key here is to turn weaknesses into strengths. Mirror neurons are two-way; if someone else sees you do something, his mirror neurons fire. By moving to the centre of the car, one person encourages other people to move -- which probably explains why there were a few people in the centre of the car when the train moved off. And that's just the beginning.
The human creature is a thinking being. The
kia philosophies are, quite literally, based on fear and avoidance of that which is feared. The opposite of fear is not so much as courage as understanding and acceptance. Soldiers assault close-range ambushes because they understand that a swift counterattack is the best means of survival, and accept the risk that remains because not doing so means certain death. This, I believe, is the basis of what we call courage -- if only at the unconscious level. In order to overcome the kia culture, it is crucial to develop the ability to assess our wants, needs, goals, objectives, fears, strengths and weaknesses, to pay more attention to growth and real gain instead of defending the ego, and to keep acting on these principles. When more and more people act this way, they influence even more people to follow these principles, leading to a paradigm shift in mindset.
External changes here can be accomplished easily enough. But internal changes, through re-programming the brain, is harder, takes longer, and is more painful. Yet it is this kind of change that drives real change, be it giving way to other passengers or abolishing slavery or granting the right to vote or running a country. The basis of real change is a change in mindset that predicates the physical generation and maintenance of new, presumably better, ideas.
But change like this starts from you.
Dare you change?